Feathers Come From Fish Teeth

Quetzalcoatl detail . green-wing macaw tail feather and shed rattlesnake skin

According to Paleontologist Neil Shubin in his book Your Inner Fish, teeth were the first hard things that developed in any creature’s bodies, even bones. They developed in early jawless and boneless fish like lampreys. The way they developed, by folding of inner and outer layer of skin, paved the way for the same process to be adapted to the development of feathers and also scales and other organs like mammary breasts. He states, “the battery of major genetic switches that are active in this process in each kind of tissue are largely similar. “ and, “We would never have scales, feathers, or breasts if we didn’t have teeth in the first place.”

I am drawn to this idea because it means that we share more with other creatures than we usually think.

Where Omelettes Come From

Indebted to Chickens . turkey feathers . 15 x 27 inches

Some chickens get to run around in small flocks, eat bugs, scratch around, and generally have pretty good lives. Others are caged on top of each other for maximum production. They have terrible lives. But regardless, I often eat their eggs even though the eggs from birds that get to nibble on grass and bugs taste better. I made this piece because I am grateful that chickens make eggs for us. Thank you chickens.  

Colorful Bird Noisily Flies Over Longest Feathers

A bit of playfulness and color for a dark winter day. On days like this, I need some fun distractions which took this form today. Other days it is playing music I like and then dancing around the studio.

Legendary and Mythic Birds

Plumed serpent cut from an argus pheasant feather

This is Wikepedia’s list of mythic birds. They seem to have left out a major legendary creature, the Quetzalcoatl or plumed serpent of mesoamerica. God of wind and rain as well as of art and literature; creator of humans and perhaps destroyer also.

• Adarna – has healing powers, put people to sleep, and turn people into stone (Philippines)

• Aethon – eagle tormentor of Prometheus

• Alkonost – female with body of a bird (Russian)

• Alectryon – rooster (Greek)

• Alicanto – bird with luminescent feathers which feeds on gold or silver (Chilean)

• Bare-fronted Hoodwink

• Bennu – self-creating deity, Phoenix (Egyptian)

• Bird People

• Cockatrice

• Caladrius – white bird with healing powers (Roman)

• Cetan – hawk spirit (Native American – Lakota tribe of North and South Dakota)

• Chamrosh – body of a dog, head & wings of a bird (Persian Myth)

• Chol (Biblical mythology) – regenerative bird

• Cinnamon bird – builds nests out of cinnamon (Arabia)

• Devil Bird – shrieks predicting death, like banshee (Sri Lankan)

• Feng Huang – reigns over other birds (China)

• Gandaberunda – two headed magical bird (Hindu)

• Gamayun – prophetic bird with woman's head (Russian)

• Garuda – known as the primordial bird and the progenitor of all birds; vehicle of Lord Vishnu (Hindu, Buddhist)

• Griffin – guards treasure and priceless possessions (Greek)

• Harpy – ugly winged bird woman, steals food (Greek)

• Hræsvelgr – giant who takes the form of an eagle (Norse mythology)

• Horus – deity (Egypt)

• Hugin and Munin – two ravens that serve as messengers (Norse mythology)

• Itsumade – monstrous bird with a human face (Japan)

• Minokawa – Giant, Dragon-like bird in Philippines (Philippines)

• Nachtkrapp – (The Night Raven)

• Oozlum bird – (Australian and British folk tales)

• Owlman – compared to America's Mothman (England)

• Pamola – bird/moose spirit who causes cold weather (Abenaki)

• Phoenix – (Greek)

• Piasa  – Enormous bird outside of Alton Illinois, memorialized on rock painting;[1] last reported sighting 1973 when the bird carried off two children [2]

• Ra – Deity (Egypt)

• Rain Bird – bird who brought rain (Native American)

• Roc – enormous legendary bird of prey

• Shangyang – rainbird (Chinese)

• Simurgh

• Sirin – birds with women heads, lured men to their death (Russia, Greek)

• Strix – owl that ate human flesh (Greek)

• Stymphalian birds – man-eating birds (Greek)

• Tengu – has human and bird characteristics, name means dog (Japan)

• Three-legged bird (various cultures)

• Thunderbird – (Native American, American Southwest, Great Lakes, and Great Plains)

• Thoth – deity (Egypt)

• Turul – mythological bird of prey

• Vermilion Bird – (Chinese)

• Vucub Caquix – bird demon

• Yatagarasu – three-legged crow

• Zhenniao – poisonous bird (Chinese)

• Ziz – giant griffin (Jewish)

• Zu – divine monster depicted as 

My Weird Fear

Random page from my 2019 sketchbook. None of these ideas have been pursued. Maybe someday.

My great fear is not about being able to come up with ideas, that is easy. It is about coming up with too many. This morning, I sat in my studio with my pen and sketchbook with the intent to jot down some scratchy drawings toward fulfilling a commission which will consist of four separate pieces. I did this in a few minutes. During the next twenty minutes, from those four ideas flowed twenty more, which have the potential to spawn 50 more. Do you understand what I am saying? I am excited to make every one of my ideas into art and my fear is that I won’t be able to, which I won’t because I always come up with too many ideas.

Boundaries

Worm Food . 12” x 18” . turkey feathers

My body is made of the food I eat. Same with a bird.

A robin eats worms and reconstitutes them into its muscles and beak and feet and feathers. The leftovers come out the other end and become worm food. In this sense, the boundaries of what a bird is and what a worm is become fuzzy. In the same vein, I suspect that the boundaries of what and who I am are also less distinct than I usually imagine.

Dark Winter Day, New Studio Door Sculpture

Studio Door, dark winter day

You will find me inside this studio door on most dark winter days. The short, dark and cold days please me because the studio is cozy and I want to be there. Not so much in the summer when warmer days beckon.

Greg Bartol and I made the new metal sculpture in his metal shop. I just installed it above the studio door. Thank you Greg!

Without Feathers, We Are Naked

I learned a new word: “metalute”. It comes from the Mehinaku language, a tribe that still lives in forests of Brazil and means that one is naked unless wearing feathers. I first read about this in a New York Times article (great article on the transformative, talismanic power of feathers, August, 2019) that referenced the anthropologist Thomas Gregor. I found his Mehinaku paper in Portuguese entitled The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village that was published in 1977 and was able to sort of muddle my way through it with my Spanish.

2020 Calendar

Every year we print a one page 11” x 14” calendar on heavy paper. They are usually sent only as gifts, not for sale.

However this year, until the end of 2019, I am making this calendar available to my blog and newsletter readers at my cost of $10 which will cover the heavy paper, printing, envelopes, our time, and mailing within the USA. Pay through PayPal or send a check or cash to Featherfolio LLC, 8211 Ayer Street SE, Olympia, WA 98501. Outside the USA, it is $15 and you can use info@featherfolio to pay through PayPal.

Awareness

Gull Flight . great blue turaco tail feathers . 30 “ x 24” . for a commission

Awareness depends on what we focus on, right? Well, duh.

When I read the book "Salt: a World History" by Mark Kurlansky, the whole of human history seemed to revolve around our use of salt. When I read a book by E.O. Wilson, all land-based life appears to have something to do with ants. When I get a new car, I notice how many cars are the same make and model as mine.

Since my artistic focus is solely about birds and uses only feathers, that might say something about my sanity. My world can sort of revolve around feathers. But an advantage of this specialization is that flight and hope and other metaphors associated with feathers are a big part of my life. Maybe that is why I feel so joyful and light most of the time.

Abstraction

Swiftsure . great argus pheasant secondary wing feathers, naturally shed, one from each wing

A bird interprets what it sees through its visual process—light to eyes to brain. This interpretation is sort of an abstraction, an inference. The thing thought to be seen is not the thing, it is just light waves reflected off a surface that has to be interpreted in order to make sense of it.

Humans carry this interpretation process to the nth degree through language. We base our conscious thoughts on our abstraction process of language. We don’t often experience life directly but through our thoughts which are shaped by our language like the words on this page. For instance, the word for feather is not the feather but is a concept that we codify into language so we can communicate the idea of “feather” to each other. The word is static while an actual feather is not. So when we see a feather, we are likely not fully seeing it but rather thinking of it as the word that we learned for what a feather should be. The actual feather is much more grand.

Art can get past our limited language-based concepts. For this reason, I am pleased that I have chosen feathers as my medium. By using an actual feather, I remove a layer of abstraction which would exist if I represented the feather with a drawing or sculpture. Then by carving the feather, the result does not quite fit into the word or concept we have of what a feather should be and in that moment, there is an opening to see them differently, with new eyes and maybe with wonder.

A Bird's Home

Feathers are a birds home. They keep a bird warm, dry, and protected from the sun. If we had feathers, our world would look very different. We too would be warm, dry, and modest so we would not need any clothes. We would not need houses. And if the feathers helped us fly, we wouldn’t need roads to get from here to there.

Taking a Break

Taking a Break . 5 x 7 inches . ringtail duck secondary (speculum) wing feathers

This September was for me, a time of art shows and travel. So I took a short break from my studio and making of art. Sort of like this drake and hen duck watching their offspring, I took a break to watch my art interact with the world.

What is the Most Beautiful Feather?

Argus Pheasant English Alphabet made from patterns in their feathers. 24 x 18 inches . $15 which includes shipping within USA, $20 for outside the USA. Email the payment to info@featherfolio through PayPal .

It’s the patterns on the feathers that make this peacock-sized bird so awesome.   How can a bird that grows only black, white and brown feathers be so attractive?  For me, it’s because the patterns vary so much.  The bird sports eyes on some of its wing feathers that look exactly like the eye spots on some moths.  And there are not only one or two eyes on each feather but 10 or more!  At 30 inches long, these impress me as the most wondrous feathers on earth.  

I still have a number of these argus alphabet posters. They were printed a few years ago and I have been so busy with original art that these were not marketed much or distributed. If you would like one or some (or wholesale orders) email us at info@featherfolio.com. Retail is $10 each plus shipping.

The Poster: 24 x 18 inches, $10 each, $5 shipping for up to 7 (within the USA call for shipping prices outside the USA). Shipped rolled in a thick tube.

Ground and Sky, part two.

Underneath and Above . shed rattlesnake skins and mute swan feathers . 12 x 18 inches

Ground and Sky

Ground and Sky study 1 . shed rattlesnake skin and mute swan feather . 5 x 7 inches

I am still struggling to find ways to incorporate flattened, shed snakeskins into my work.

I’ve always been drawn to feathers because they represent one of my basic desires: to fly; to move about freely in the air with no restraints. Now i am confused because I also feel a strong pull toward these shed snakeskins which, if anything, represent the opposite of feathers. So I find myself this summer lying on the ground, feeling the pull of gravity and the closeness of the plants and soil. Although I am unable easily slither and move about anywhere near the grace of a snake.

In partial recognition of this concurrent pull to the earth and to the skies, these opposing but complimentary forces, I tried out using both themes in several small studies. Here is one. What do you think?

This is only 5 x 7 inches because that is the widest that the largest width of the rattlesnake skin I have. I would like to find some larger snakeskin sheds. Do you know of anyone with a 20 foot python?

Combining Shed Snakeskins and Shed Feathers

Pay Attention . 15” x 12” . flattened, shed snakeskin and two female red-tail black cockatoo tail feathers

My mind is still turning. How can I combine naturally shed snake skins and feathers into a unified design that incorporates something of a relationship that these reptiles may have to birds and vice versa. Here is one idea.

A shed feather is sort of the equivalent to a snake shedding a single scale. Yet the snake sheds its entire skin at once which includes all of its scales. It sheds it skin kind of like when we take off a tight piece of clothing like a t-shirt. We turn it inside out when we pull it off. If a bird were to shed like this, all of its feathers would come off with its skin inside-out and we would find these lying around as entire shed bird skins on the outside with the feathers all on the inside. For some of us, they would be quite the treasures.

Natural Creations: Shed Snake Skins

Like a feather, a snake’s skin is made of keratin, the strongest of animal materials. And like feathers, snake skins are shed periodically. A snake sheds its skin and scales while a bird just sheds its feathers and gets to keep its skin.

 Because of their physical similarities to feathers, you might understand my fascination with snake skin sheds. Flattening a shed skin with a hot steam iron, it is as thin as tissue paper and has all the scales and patterns that were once on the snake.

Natural Creations: Wasp Paper

Polistes wasp, wood fiber, and red construction paper

Someone who saw my art at a museum exhibit told me that it reminded them of an artist in Australia who they know, Shona Wilson. She leads workshops, gently guiding people into the forest, field, or garden to make ephemeral creations out of found natural objects. You can watch a video of her thoughts and process on her website.

I am always arranging what I find on the beach or in the woods into something or other. It is a soothing, focused meditation: intense concentration, appreciation, and awareness and also a retreat from the busy world.

Is this in any way akin to what a bird feels like making a nest or a wasp making its? This wasp was doing its thing with human-made materials: red construction paper that I provided.

Fading Away

Goodbye 4, turkey and swan feathers, 15 x 12 inches

A feather is a symbol of hope, which is an underlying theme of my art. However, I find myself facing a dilemma. Worldwide, we talk about reversing our ongoing dismantling of the earth's complex natural environments, but it is not happening; we keep at the same destructive activities at an increasing rate. Species extinctions, human population, and temperatures keep rising. So how can I express something that appears beyond hope using feathers, a symbol of hope? 

One idea I have about loss of hope is that it is akin to the grieving process. Like the loss of someone I cherish or the sadness of knowing my own life will end. Soon though, as I have found with my own grief, comes a feeling of awe at the beauty of creation. It overwhelms the sadness. I find myself continuously grateful for the gifts our world gives us. It makes me want to give back.

I would love to hear about your thoughts on this subject of hope/hopelessness or anything else in this newsletter.

This appeared in my June 2019 Newsletter. Sign up here for my quarterly newsletter. It has what I have been thinking about and upcoming shows and events.